What Is A Video Documentary
- A non-fiction movie that in some way “documents” or captures reality.
- Often used to reveal an unusual, interesting, or unknown angle.
- Typically 30-minutes to 2 hours in length.
How To Create A Documentary For Your Business
1. Select your interviewees
- Select five or six people who are as diverse in as many ways possible.
- You can choose to have your employees interviewed or your customers.
2. Talk to your interviewees
- Talk to your interviewees and get their story directly.
- Keep in mind that it’s their point of view you’re after.
3. Organize your potential story
- Once your interviews are completed, transcribe them and put them in a binder.
- Highlight and arrange your best sound bites easily and quickly.
4. Determine your intentions through a script
- After arranging your potential story, copy and paste these quotes into a new document.
- This will become your working script.
5. Get supporting footage
- What will your audience see while the story is being told?
- Imagine the footage you want to be captured in the appropriate areas of the script.
- Write it down.
6. Capture engaging videos
- Put visuals to your script.
- Capture compelling footage that expresses and compliments your narrative.
7. Shape your story in editing
- Use music and all the visual tools available into an emotional narrative.
- Make it relevant to your intentions
Process of Creating A Company’s Documentary
Pre-production
- Ask yourself, “What’s the goal?”
- Think of the footages and scenes you want to capture
- Plan your script
- Assess your brand story
Gather your equipment
- Cameras
- Lenses
- Microphones
- Monopod
- Headphones
- SD cards
- Portable hard drive
- Extra batteries
Focus on the story
- Make sure that the story you’re looking to tell is in a place for more than you need to use flashy equipment.
Collect a variety of shots
Have as many options as you can have
Chose from:
-Talking Head: Someone speaking to the camera.
-Vlog: An informal shot of a narrator speaking into a camera that they either set up or are holding.
-A-Roll: Your best footage, often of interviews, which narrate the central theme.
-B-Roll: Contextual footage for transitions, or to cut to while people are speaking.
Or add:
- Animations
- Text Overlays
Organize your footages
- Each night, offload your footage and organize it
Assemble everything in post-production
- Re-read your pre-production goals
- Conduct the first edit
- Conduct a second edit
- And a third
- Add transitions and animated chapter titles
- End on a note
- Build a trailer
Share and promote your documentary
- Use different channels to share your video.